Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Halloween in Minnesota, yesterday & today October 31, 2025

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One of several scary characters positioned in a residential yard near downtown Waterville. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, my friends!

For sale at The Barn craft sale in September in Cannon City. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)

If I was a kid, I’d be super excited about putting on my costume, grabbing my candy collecting bucket or bag and heading out to trick-or-treat. But, since I’m an adult, there will be none of that, only a quiet evening at home. I didn’t even buy candy to hand out since the number of trick-or-treaters to our house sometimes numbers zero. Plus, the cost of candy is too high.

Thrift shops, like the Salvation Army in Red Wing, are good sources for Halloween costumes. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

But my grandkids, ages nine months, six and nine, will join countless costumed kids canvasing neighborhoods for treats. Izzy is dressing as Pikachu, Isaac as Numberblock Six and baby Everett as a dragon. Not that a baby can eat candy, but, well, his parents are pretty excited about their son’s first Halloween. I remember our oldest daughter’s first Halloween costumed as an angel. And I remember my childhood Halloweens in rural Minnesota, especially the year I dressed as a gypsy.

In Waterville, warnings in a neighborhood Halloween display. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

I remember Mom dropping me and my siblings off in my hometown of Vesta, population around 360, to collect goodies. This wasn’t necessarily ring the doorbell or knock, then grab and go. Sometimes we stepped inside to show off our costumes and sign a guestbook before being given our candy. Or, in the case of Great Aunt Gertie, a homemade popcorn ball, which was quite capable of causing a chipped tooth. When we were done gathering treats, we went to Grandma’s house where Mom picked us up for the short ride back to the farm.

The entrance to Coy and Kathy Lane’s Haunted Mini-Golf interactive Halloween display at 234 First Avenue Southwest in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

One aspect absent from my childhood Halloweens were yards full of spooky decorations. Today they are everywhere. My neighbors up the street, Coy and Kathy Lane, create a themed display in their yard that is open from 10 a.m.- 9 p.m. the entire month of October. This year they built a haunted mini golf course. It’s impressive. Sound, lights and action make this a fully-immersive experience created by a couple who clearly love Halloween. They’ll be handing out full-sized candy bars on Halloween, the final date the display is open to the public…until next October.

A Halloween display on a front porch in small town Nerstrand. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

All around Faribault and neighboring communities, inflatables and other factory-made decorations have popped up in yards. Cats. Frankenstein. Skeletons. Witches. And on and on.

As much as I dislike creepy dolls, I posed with this one at Coy and Kathy Lane’s haunted mini golf course. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo by Randy Helbling, October 2025)

But the single freakiest Halloween decorations for me personally are the dolls. I can’t quite put my finger on why they creep me out other than that they do. My neighbors have an entire family of creepy dolls circling one hole in their mini golf course. I posed with one of them while Randy took a photo. We were there with our two oldest grandchildren during daylight hours, which likely explains why all of us were more entertained than scared.

I spotted this creepy doll in a storefront window in Montgomery, Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Now had a mouse been running around or a bat flying about, I would have fled the Halloween scene, snap, just like that.

My favorite hole at the Lane Halloween display features clowns. And, yes, some move. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

TELL ME: What are you doing for Halloween? Also, I’d love to hear a Halloween memory or story. Please share.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An impressive & immersive Halloween “wedding” in Faribault draws lots of “guests” October 29, 2023

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:28 PM
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The entry to Coy and Kathy Lane’s second annual Halloween display in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

IT’S SIMULTANEOUSLY CREEPY, creative and community-centered. That would be the Halloween display in the front and side yards of Coy and Kathy Lane, who live a block away from me up a steep side street.

The band plays for wedding guests. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

Late Sunday morning Randy and I finally toured the Coys’ second annual Halloween creation, this year themed to the wedding of Stella Live and Noah Pulse. Kathy stepped outside her house to greet us and then to turn on the switches activating lights, sound and action. The Coys want visitors to walk into their yard for a fully-immersive experience. Already some 1,400 “guests” have stopped by to witness this wedding and attend the reception, according to Kathy. That’s double those who viewed their 2022 clown daycare display.

By the cemetery, an unexpected fright. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

From chatting with Kathy, it’s clear she and Coy love transforming their yard into a Halloween attraction that delights, awes and impresses. The couple enjoys the social aspect of interacting with visitors in what Kathy calls a family-friendly setting. If they learn that a young guest may be frightened by any aspect of their display, they’ll switch off the scary.

The Angel of Death activates to infuse scary into the cemetery. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

Had Kathy not warned me about the over-sized black-shrouded skeleton she activated near the cemetery, I may have jumped a bit. She noted every Halloween scene needs a cemetery, even at a wedding, where the reception was held at the Hiss and Hearse Golf Club and Cemetery. And, yes, there are open coffins and an Angel of Death and…

Brewing up drinks at the bar. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

And there’s a band and a wicked witch mother-in-law photo-bombing a photo of the bride and groom and a full open bar and a banquet table and a whole lot more.

At least one wedding guest drank too much. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

The attention to detail is remarkable. A guest who’s overindulged, perhaps on North Dust, Coffin Juice or Wing of Bat, pukes green vomit. A skeleton drummer bangs out a rhythm with bone drumsticks. A granny, skeleton cat beside her, rocks on the front porch as she oversees the festivities.

The creepy little girl. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

Creepiest of all, in my opinion, is the teddy bear clutching girl who waits just inside the yard entry. Her long black hair falls around her sickly green face defined by glowing blue eyes. Over-sized green feet support her small frame. She’s off in a ghoulish sort of way that made me wonder what she’s capable of, what she’s thinking.

There’s lots to see, including a horse-drawn hearse with a surprise inside the glass-encased hearse. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

I know what I was thinking upon viewing the Coys’ display. I was thinking how generous, how creative, how wonderful of this couple to share their love of Halloween with the Faribault community. They’ve generated lots of smiles, mixed with an element of fear, but in a good sort of way.

FYI: The Halloween display, located at 234 First Avenue Southwest, will be up only until October 31. Lights turn off at 9 pm weekdays and 10 pm weekends.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling